1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a disposable lighter, and more particularly to a child resistant disposable lighter which comprises a shielding frame for shielding the striker wheel therein so as to prevent the disposable lighter from being ignited accidentally or by children.
2. Description of Related Arts
Modern butane lighters have become very popular, especially the flint type disposable lighters, since the lighters are economy, cheap and easy operation. Due to the safety purpose, both the government and the consumers in United States demand a safety device employed in every lighter to prevent unwanted ignition accidentally or by a child. Most of the disposable lighters are employed with a safety lock that normally locks up a depression of the gas releasing button of the disposable lighter so as to prevent the disposable lighter from unwanted ignition. However, the structure of such safety lock is more complicated that highly increases the manufacturing cost of the disposable lighter. Furthermore, not all the countries require the lighter to employ with the safety device such that it is not economy for the manufacturer to make the lighters to fit both the markets whether the markets require the safety device or not.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,541, owned by Yang, generally suggests a safety windshield comprising a pair of safety shells integrally extended from two sides of a frame body to coaxially encircle two outer sides of two driving wheels respectively in such a manner that the safety shells form a physical barrier to prevent a thumb of a child from fully engaging with the driving wheels, as shown in FIG. 1. Moreover, the '541 patent requires a radius of each safety shells being slightly larger than that of the driving wheel. However, practically speaking, the child's fingers have a smaller size that when a little child use his or her finger of one hand, such as his or her left hand thumb, to press down the gas lever, the child is still free to independently press a litter finger tip of him or her another hand, such as the index finger of his or here right hand, into the safety shells' top front opening positioned close to the gas nozzle and able to deform his or her finger tip's muscle to reach the driving wheels and frictionally engage with the driving wheels, as shown in FIG. 1B. Practically, since there is a particular room between the thumb and the index finger, once the child's finger can rotate the driving wheels for about a one-third to half the circumferential length thereof, the disposable lighter can be ignited. Which not only may cause unexpected accident but also may burn the child's finger because the position where the finger is pressed on the safety shells is closed to the gas nozzle where the flame released.
Moreover, the measurement of the safety shells must be precise during the manufacturing process. When the radius of each safety shell is too large, even an adult may fail to deform his or her thumb to frictionally engage with the driving wheels in order to ignite the disposable lighter. When the radius of each safety shell is too small such as smaller than that of the driving wheel, the safety shells fail to well encircle the driving wheels and lose their safety purpose as the safety windshield.